In vying for votes, political parties in Malaysia routinely tout similar agendas on their platforms: boosting the economy, eliminating corruption, helping their constituents in various ways. Few of them, though, campaign seriously on pledges to protect local environments better. In Penang, that should change, insists the homegrown conservationist group Pelindung…

The Penang South Reclamation Scheme looks good on paper … at least to local politicians and developers. It would be a massive overhaul of the fast-developing island’s southern shoreline complete with the construction of two new artificial islands off the coast (of about 2,000 acres and 1,300 acres respectively) with…

Environmental issues know no borders. Harm done to natural environments in one area, region, state or country invariably has a way of having its effects felt much farther afield. Polluted air and polluted water can cross manmade boundaries with ease. That’s why effective environmental action requires international cooperation. It is…

Penang has a problem. Being a relatively small yet populous island, it has little land left for development. Yet the island’s government and private developers want to keep on building. So they are increasingly eyeing as yet undeveloped and underdeveloped patches of seashore and hillside. That, however, poses grave environmental…

It seems that not a week goes by without yet more revelations, or at least claims, that there is continued land clearing on Penang, presenting an ever graver threat to the island’s scenic but fragile ecosystem. Sadly, this week is no different. According to Dominic Lau Hoe Chai, vice-president of he…

In a move that shocked environmentalists around the world, President Donald Trump decided to pull the United States out of the Paris Agreement, an accord that was adopted by 196 countries worldwide in an effort to moderate their greenhouse gas emissions to keep climate change manageable. The US’s withdrawal has…

Time to rejoice: Penang did not lose a single tree to loggers in its permanent forest reserves between 2006 and 2015. At least according to the state’s Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng. Yes, but what of the periodic forest-clearings on the island’s hills that have left visible “bald” patches in…

Corruption is a blight on the environment. It undermines rule of law, aids a culture of impunity and corrodes trust in the authorities. Malaysia is a country with high levels of endemic corruption so it’s no surprise that it is also facing a variety of acute environmental problems. But there’s always…

Let its developers tell you, and the mega-project Forest City in Johor will be a paragon of eco-friendliness and social amity. Critics, however, will retort that the development will be nothing of the sort. A joint venture between China’s Country Garden Holdings Co Ltd and a Johor state-owned investment firm,…

Living in a clean and healthy environment should not just be a bonus for Malaysians. It should be a constitutional right. So says the nation’s Chief Justice Arifin Zakaria, who has recommended adding “the right to a clean environment” to the list of liberties to which all Malaysian citizens are entitled. “While our…

The death of Adenan Satem, Sarawak’s Chief Minister who died suddenly of a heart attack at age 72, has come as a shock to citizens of the Bornean state. It may also have dealt a blow to reinvigorated conservation efforts in Sarawak. As we have noted previously on Clean Malaysia, during…

Whatever you say or do in Malaysia, do not “insult” the high and mighty. This is a lesson that two environmentalists have just learned. Shariffa Sabrina Syed Akil, president of Pertubuhan Pelindung Khazanah Alam Malaysia (Peka), and Norhayati Shahrom, the nonprofit’s administrator, were detained by police for allegedly making disparaging comments…

Wildlife crimes and corruption routinely go hand in hand. For starters, without certain officials willing to turn a blind eye to rampant trafficking (for kickbacks and other rewards), traffickers would have a much harder time. But the problem can go much deeper than that. A pervasive culture of bribery, money laundering and institutionalized…

To protect Malaysia’s wildlife and environment, you have to invest in them. That is the gist of a call by Dionysius Sharma, who is executive director and CEO of WWF-Malaysia, on the country’s government. “Fiscal measures need to be put in place to assist the State governments in setting aside forests…

One of the ironies of climate change is that the better we live, the worse the world’s prospects become. That is because our modern lifestyles in industrialized societies still require the burning of plenty of fossil fuels. Here’s another irony: the more poorer nations become prosperous, the worse it will get for…

As legislative reversals go, this one was a biggie. French legislators planned to impose a punitive tax on palm oil products from leading producers like Malaysia and Indonesia as part of a new biodiversity law. The planned tax – dubbed the Nutella Tax (after the famous chocolate spread, which contains plenty of…

Newsletter

Facebook Page

We Support

Follow us on Twitter

Clean Malaysia is an independent online news site covering all aspects of Malaysia’s environmental landscape. We are dedicated to delivering news, analysis and opinions to both Malaysians and the international community. Our mission is to raise awareness of Malaysia as a tropical natural beauty but also to bring to light environmental dangers and encourage a debate about the future of Malaysia’s sustainable development.